Brian Bolland: The Master of Detail Who Revolutionized Comics
Brian Bolland’s pencil is an icon factory. In the late 70s, his precise and meticulous style established 2000AD as the freshest comic magazine in the United Kingdom, and Judge Dredd as its most imposing figure. His unprecedented entry into the American market opened the door for talents that would redefine the industry. Along with one of them, Alan Moore, he drew The Killing Joke, one of the most popular Batman comics of all time, and solidified the Joker’s place in popular culture. Let’s see what we can learn from the man who, with 50 pages, earned a fundamental place in pop culture. Ladies and gentlemen, the first British Invader… Brian Bolland!
From Dinosaurs to Superheroes: The Beginnings of an Artist
Brian Bolland was born on March 26, 1951, in Butterwick, a small village in the English Midlands. He discovered comics at age 10, when his youthful obsession with dinosaurs led him to buy every magazine with a prehistoric monster on the cover, from Dell Comics’ Turok, Son of Stone to DC magazines where Superman, Aquaman, Batman, and Robin were regularly attacked by all kinds of titanic creatures.
From a very young age, he greatly admired the level of sophistication in the line achieved by DC artists in the so-called Silver Age, such as Carmine Infantino in Flash, Gil Kane in Green Lantern, and Bruno Premiani in Doom Patrol. Although he mainly became a fan of American comics, he still consumed British comics, and avidly followed Sid Jordan’s Jeff Hawke newspaper strips, and the adventures in Valiant magazine, becoming particularly fascinated by Jesus Blasco’s Steel Claw.
Stimulated by these artists, Bolland awakened an unexpected artistic vocation for a farmer’s son, and as a young man wrote and drew crude comics with his own characters. Towards the end of the decade, with his artistic vocation already defined, he immersed himself fully in the counterculture of the time, represented by England’s pirate radios, psychedelia, drug experimentation, and particularly in the underground comix by artists like R. Crumb that circulated among alternative magazines and weeklies.
Training and First Steps in the World of Comics
Bolland studied graphic design and art history at the Norwich School Of Arts, but the vast majority of his artistic learning was outside academia, through contact with other comic book fans through the fanzine scene. During this period, Bolland discovered the great history of comics, from its beginnings with Herriman and McCay, and the basic figure construction of the Foster-Raymond-Caniff trio, to the variety of comics being produced around the world, from Milo Manara in Italy to Alberto Breccia in Argentina and Alfredo Alcala in the Philippines.
Fascinated by this world he had discovered, Bolland devoted himself completely to the study and practice of comic drawing, eventually writing a 15,000-word dissertation on Neal Adams for his university thesis. A product of this obsession was one of his first works, an erotic parody of Little Nemo in Slumberland titled Little Nympho In Slumberland, in which the heroine had misadventures in a fantasy land that in one way or another ended with her naked, in the best style of the early undergrounds. Bolland self-published Little Nympho In Slumberland along with other strips in a 50-copy fanzine, while contributing art to various other fanzines and convention advertisements.
One of the more “presentable” strips from Little Nympho In Slumberland.
The Leap to Professionalism: Powerman and 2000AD
It would be at one of these conventions, Comicon 72 (colloquial name for the British Comic Art Convention, not to be confused with San Diego Comic-Con) where he would meet in person several other comic enthusiasts from the United Kingdom, mainly another up-and-coming London cartoonist, Dave Gibbons. Bolland and Gibbons quickly became close friends, a bond they maintain to this day, and when Bolland graduated from university in 1974, Gibbons recommended him to join the Bardon Press Features art agency.
Through Bardon Press, Bolland managed to enter the industry with a very peculiar project. An advertising agency in Nigeria was interested in publishing comics with a black superhero, Powerman, in an attempt to promote reading among African children, and Bolland and Gibbons were chosen to draw it, alternating a bi-weekly issue each. Powerman turned out to be a very important learning experience for Bolland; on one hand, as there wasn’t really a comic culture in Nigeria, he was given strict instructions on how to draw the stories with the greatest narrative clarity possible, in a simple grid. On the other hand, seeing with his own eyes how Gibbons could produce the art for an entire issue in the time it took him to produce a few pages, Bolland quickly became aware that he was too slow as an illustrator, and that he would have to learn to speed up his production if he planned to work professionally as a cartoonist.
The double challenges, plus the mitigating factor that if any story left him unsatisfied it would be published in a place where no one he knew would see it, made Powerman a perfect cartoonist training, and Bolland drew more than 300 pages of the curious hero in two years (with help from Gibbons, and their mutual friend Kevin O’Neil, to meet those pesky deadlines), in which the precision and attention to detail that made him a star already emerge.
Powerman cover from 1976, where Bolland’s style already seems to be defined.
In 1977, Gibbons left Powerman to join the launch of a new weekly science fiction magazine, but Bolland preferred to continue working for Nigeria, nervous that the new magazine wouldn’t last more than a few months. The magazine, 2000AD, quickly became a success, driven by one of its most original creations: Judge Dredd, the ultra-violent satire of police authoritarianism created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra.
Although he missed the magazine’s launch on March 5, by May he was already contributing covers and some single pages, as well as inking Gibbons on Dan Dare. The editor-in-chief at 2000AD, Nick Landau, knew Bolland from Comicon 72, and when an artist dropped out for a Judge Dredd episode at the end of ’77, he personally called to offer him the job. Soon Bolland entered the rotation of Judge Dredd artists, and would be the key figure in finishing to define the character.
A double page by Bolland from 1980, where Bolland’s style manages to make the incredible believable.
Bolland’s Unique Style: Detail and Dynamism
Bolland’s art quickly stood out among fans for its unique combination of detail and dynamism. Most 2000AD artists, including the other main Judge Dredd artist during his early years, Mike McMahon, used a more impressionistic style, with loose figures and dirty inking. Bolland greatly admired the idiosyncratic energy McMahon was putting into Judge Dredd, and took it as a model for his own interpretation of Dredd, but his style was much more rigorous in its technique, showing like Gibbons his inspiration in the work of American cartoonists.
But Bolland took that inspiration a step further, and starting from his study of Neal Adams, and Mad cartoonist Mort Drucker, developed a photorealistic yet caricatured aesthetic, in which carefully defined volume faces still overflow with expression and life. This detailed style was perfect for the ironic and delirious situations in which Wagner and co-writer Alan Grant put Dredd, and although his perfectionism and consequent slowness meant that his contribution was reduced in total pages, Bolland’s brush defined the iconic look of the character, as well as co-creating key characters like Judge Death and Judge Anderson.
Bolland’s Judge Dredd in all its splendor, on this explosive 1981 cover
The British Invasion: Bolland Arrives in the United States
In 1979, American artist Joe Staton, at the time in charge of Green Lantern, traveled to the United Kingdom as a guest of Comicon, and stayed at the Bollands’ house. Given the enthusiasm with which Bolland professed his love for the character, Staton made the connection with his editor for him to draw a cover. That cover was followed by other jobs, including some filler comics. Bolland became the first British artist to work regularly for the United States, and his drawings of impeccable anatomy and overflowing energy quickly made him a star, especially when a series of Judge Dredd reprints in the American market (for which he drew dozens of covers) exposed his best work among fans.
Soon DC editors were sniffing around London, looking for other high-caliber artists, and soon Gibbons was also drawing Green Lantern, followed by a long line of artists and writers from the United Kingdom who would bring with them a new perspective and attitude on how to make comics, in what was colloquially known as the British Invasion.
Bolland fulfilled a dream by designing a Justice League of America cover for the legendary editor Julius Schwartz
Camelot 3000: An Epic Challenge
In 1982, when Bolland had already proven his worth to DC, editor Len Wein chose him to illustrate a project of great importance for the publisher. Camelot 3000, a revision of the King Arthur myth set in the distant future written by Mike W. Barr, was planned as a monthly 12-issue “maxi-series”, printed on Baxter paper, of better quality than the usual newsprint, and was specifically aimed at the flourishing direct market of comic shops that were opening across the United States.
Although the popular Bolland seemed an obvious choice to generate interest among fans, he had never drawn a monthly series, and was already notoriously slow in his work, so DC assigned him only the pencils of Camelot 3000, which were inked by Bruce Patterson and Terry Austin. Bolland, coming from the British school of black and white comics, didn’t feel comfortable with the American assembly logic of delegating such a vital part of the creative process, and insisted on at least inking his covers (And that process was also tortuous, with his cover sketches being frequently rejected). To counteract this attack on his autonomy, the pencils of Camelot 3000 were extremely detailed, seeking to have the inking have the least possible range of influence, and in the first issues there was even experimentation with reproducing the pencils directly, but the printing technology was not yet up to par.
In the first issue of Camelot 3000, Bolland’s art still doesn’t fully communicate through the American inking
Although the first issues of Camelot 3000 were produced at a good pace, and with great public reception, towards the end of the series Bolland’s perfectionism slowed production to a snail’s pace. As he better adjusted to working in the American color format, he became more meticulous with each page, more detailed, more obsessed with making each issue better than the previous one. Throughout Camelot 3000 we can see Bolland evolve and refine his style, starting from the solid realistic synthesis typical of American comics by Adams and John Byrne, to a much more precise and meticulous construction of volume, inspired by the work of French Metal Hurlant artists like Moebius or Philippe Druillet, but maintaining his expressive faces and dynamic figures.
While this evolution cemented Bolland as a star, it also meant that Camelot 3000, planned as a 12-issue monthly series, ended up taking 3 years to finish, with issue 12 coming out in 1985, 9 months after issue 11. Camelot 3000 was the only time Bolland even attempted to adjust to the pace of an American monthly series.
Bolland shows his special touch for monsters on this page from Camelot 3000 from 1984
The Killing Joke: The Masterpiece
After finishing Camelot 3000, and while still illustrating covers, DC’s editor-in-chief Dick Giordano told Bolland to propose any project he wanted for his next comic. Bolland immediately thought of his favorite superhero, Batman, and his favorite writer, his English colleague Alan Moore, possibly the most important mainstream American comic writer of the 1980s.
At that time, Moore’s star, another friend from Bolland’s fandom days, was on a steep rise thanks to works like Swamp Thing, Miracleman, and V for Vendetta, and he was preparing what would be one of his magnum opuses, Watchmen, along with Dave Gibbons. When it came to defining what this story should be about, Bolland didn’t hesitate to point to The Joker, whose design had fascinated him since he drew Judge Death’s macabre smile in 2000AD, as the story’s villain. Added to his recent interest in The Man Who Laughs, the 1928 silent film that inspired Bill Finger to create the character, led to the premise centering around an origin story for the Clown Prince of Crime. Thus began to take shape what would eventually be The Killing Joke, one of the most popular superhero comics of all time.
First page of The Killing Joke, demonstrating superb storytelling from the very first panel.
As both Moore and Bolland had had problems keeping their previous projects on schedule, DC preferred that they work at their own pace, and it was decided that The Killing Joke would be a 48-page one-shot in the recently created Prestige format, without a tentative release date. Moore wrote The Killing Joke at the same time he was finishing Watchmen, and Bolland took almost two years to illustrate the dense script, determined to apply what he had learned doing Camelot 3000 to make the best possible comic. Moore’s way of writing, meticulous and obsessive about non-verbal narrative, fit like a glove to Bolland’s precise and detailed style, and the result is a masterclass on how to tell a story with words and images.
Possibly one of the most iconic images in Batman’s history, the birth of the Joker according to Bolland and Moore.
Although he was proud of the work he was doing with The Killing Joke, at the last minute Bolland had to compromise his creative integrity once again: After a leadership change at DC, and the need to exploit Moore’s fame following the success of Watchmen, The Killing Joke was assigned to be released in March 1988, forcing him to rush the art closure and delegate the coloring of the book to John Higgins, Watchmen’s colorist. Bolland gave Higgins specific instructions on what palette to use and what narrative use to give to the color, but to his horror Higgins ignored his instructions and colored The Killing Joke in a bright, psychedelic style, which while having an interesting narrative effect overloaded the page and didn’t fit with his compositional intention.
To make matters worse, shortly after finishing The Killing Joke, Moore became fed up with the mistreatment regarding copyrights he had been receiving from DC for years, and resigned from working for the company, downplaying his work for them in the fan press. Although The Killing Joke was a huge success, and Bolland won both the Eisner and Harvey Awards for Best Artist, the overall experience was bittersweet, and since then Bolland largely stopped drawing comics that weren’t entirely created by him.
Comparison between Higgins’ coloring in 1988 and the integral recoloring that Bolland undertook for the deluxe edition in 2008
The Master of Covers and the Digital Revolution
After The Killing Joke, Bolland specialized as a cover illustrator, having long and memorable runs on DC and Vertigo classics such as Animal Man, The Invisibles, and The Flash. Referring to the elaborate and imaginative covers of the Silver Age, Bolland’s covers seek to tell a story or convey an idea in an ingenious way, relying on his meticulous hyperdetailism to sell an apparently implausible concept.
Since the mid-90s, Bolland knew how to be at the forefront of another very particular vanguard: seeing that digital coloring was becoming fashionable, mostly due to the horrible treatment his covers were receiving, he decided that he had to learn to handle the new technologies if he wanted his work to shine. He turned to his old friend Gibbons to teach him how to use Photoshop, and quickly got the most modern digital drawing tablet available and discovered a whole new world of possibilities. Since 1997 Bolland has been working entirely digitally, both color and drawing, and never looked back. The fact that the change went unnoticed by the public is a testament to the level of attention that distinguished Bolland as an artist from day one.
Bolland can apply his style without problem to this completely digital cover of The Flash from 2001.
Brian Bolland’s Legacy
Currently, Bolland is mostly retired, doing some occasional covers now and then. Closing the circle in a way, in recent decades his comic work has been mainly based on a couple of comic strips, the semi-autobiographical Mr. Mammalian and the delirious The Actress and The Bishop, clearly influenced by the underground from which he came.
First page of a story from The Actress and The Bishop, which Bolland drew in the mid-2000s
Brian Bolland’s legacy is impressive for the way he stood out both within the medium and among the public. On one hand, his hyperrealistic and detailed art, so admired and so rarely imitated, made him one of the most respected artists among his peers, and the first and foremost evidence of the talent that existed across the pond. But for popular culture, Bolland is a forger of icons; for a generation that grew up on the crest of the second Batmania, The Killing Joke is the mental image of Batman and the Joker, and a platonic ideal of what a good comic book should look like. A comic artist can’t aspire to much more than that.
Bolland’s influence in the world of comics is undeniable. His attention to detail and ability to create iconic images have inspired generations of artists. If you’re passionate about comic art and want to take your drawing skills to the next level, there are resources available to help you develop your own unique style.
Bolland’s work on Judge Dredd not only visually defined the character but also set a new standard for comic art in the UK. His ability to combine detailed realism with dynamic storytelling is something many artists aspire to achieve. If you’re interested in perfecting your character drawing technique, you might find inspiration in Bolland’s work.
Bolland’s transition to the American market and his work on Camelot 3000 demonstrated his versatility as an artist. His ability to adapt his style to different genres and formats is a valuable skill for any comic artist. If you want to explore different drawing styles and techniques, Bolland’s artistic journey can be a great source of inspiration.
The Killing Joke is perhaps Bolland’s best-known work, and for good reason. His collaboration with Alan Moore produced some of the most iconic images in Batman’s history. Bolland’s attention to detail and visual storytelling in this work are truly masterful. If you’re interested in improving your visual storytelling in comics, studying The Killing Joke could be an excellent starting point.
Finally, Bolland’s adaptation to the digital era demonstrates the importance of keeping up with new technologies in the art world. His seamless transition to digital art is a testament to his skill and adaptability. If you’re considering making the jump to digital art, Bolland’s experience could provide you with valuable lessons.
In summary, Brian Bolland is a master of comics whose work continues to inspire and amaze artists and fans alike. His legacy is a testament to the power of detailed art and visual storytelling in the world of comics.
